The Pride of Tulsa

Oklahoma oilmen took time off to go to an art exhibit last week, and swelled with pride at what they saw. On show at the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa were 30 paintings that told the story of petroleum --step by step from geologist camp right down to the huge refineries, with their silvery tank farms and mazelike array of pipes and towers.

The collection was a gift from brother oilmen of the Standard Oil Co. (N.J.) 1,200 miles away. Standard Oil began to dabble in art in 1943, with the idea of dramatizing the importance of oil in wartime. The company commissioned several artists, sent them to study the fields and refineries, flew them overseas and into the northern wilderness where new-found deposits were being explored. And Standard has kept it up.* In nine years it has commissioned some 250 paintings by 48 artists, sent many of the canvases on traveling exhibitions. Last year Standard began giving them away to museums, and set some of the best aside for Tulsa.

One look was enough to convince both oilmen and critics that Patron Standard had accomplished a worthy deed. Such notable artists as Peter Hurd, Joe Jones and Thomas Hart Benton had taken part, and they had worked hard to catch the industry's roaring youth and hard-muscled energy. In bright oils and deft watercolors, they pictured the bustling Louisiana refineries, the purposeful ranks of derricks marching across western plains, the clanging docks where oil tankers are unloaded. There were scenes of an oilfield set in the middle of a Venezuelan lake, of the eerie orange glow from burning natural gas that lights up some fields at night, of spherical storage tanks, huge gate valves, heavy flow lines and brightly lit cracking plants. There was a symbol of oil in war--two G.I.s tensely guarding a fuel dump on Sai-pan--and a salute to oil in peace--a gay sailfishing party riding the Gulf Stream in a power cruiser.

All week long Tulsa's citizens, from oil barons to field workers, filed through the exhibit, scanned the familiar scenes, nodded and grinned appreciatively. Tulsa was proud of the oil business, and liked nothing better than the idea of having it set down on canvas for everybody to see.

*Standard has also been promoting art abroad. Last year the company's Rome affiliate held a contest for Italian painters, handed out $3,000 in prizes for everything from abstractions of refineries to landscapes dotted with Esso signs.

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